Marking time until it's better

You've got give Mark Warburton credit where credit's due. Rangers' manager puts in the work.

He's got a perfect ten in the Championship parade for the Ibrox side which will lead to their promotion to the Premiership at the end of the season.

And Mark gets ten out of ten for paying proper attention to the football history of the country he's come to live and work in at Rangers' request.

Mark was the guest of Queens Park President Malky Mackay at Sunday night's Hall of Fame dinner inside the National Stadium.

Journalists who invite prominent football personalities to high profile dinners will readily tell you that their guests fall into two distinct categories.

There are those who turn up midway through the meal with a shed load of improbable excuses to explain their late arrival. And then there are the others who fail, without any prior warning, to turn up at all and then give a catalogue of infuriating excuses about forgetting the date, the time, the venue or any other lame reason for their impolite non-attendance.

Warburton, on the other hand, arrived early at Hampden because he wanted to see the Scottish Football Museum on basement floor of the stadium in order to drink in the history of the country where he has now based himself.

His gesture showed proper respect for Scotland and what is still the national obsession, in spite of the best efforts of the luckless rugby players in their World Cup to have the country's sporing identity defined by another code.

After Mark had paid his respects to the past he joined us upstairs when the present was put into perspective.

Nostalgia is, until results on the park take a turn for the positive, all we have to cherish at the moment. Another qualification campaign for a major tournament has come and gone without success for the national team and our domestic football appears to have been prematurely laid bare by mid-October.

Rangers, through the dilligience and work ethic displayed by Warburton and David Weir, appear to have sewn up their league title with straight victories able to be counted on the fingers of both hands.

Celtic have re-assumed their position at the top of the Premiership and made gigantic steps towards a fifth successive title in the midst of a collapse having been suffered by their nominal contenders for the crown in Aberdeen.

The rest of the season will now need to be played out while trying to retain the interest of the spectating public.

But there was a nostalgic reminder of how we re-invigorate ourselves, and our game, prior to departure for Hampden on Sunday afternoon. Satelite television showed a fifteen minute re-run of the Old Firm's Scottish Cup tie at Ibrox in 2011.

It was what used to be known as the usual stuff.

Rangers opened the scoring with a stunning goal. Kris Commons equalised on his Old Firm debut. Celtic's goalkeeper, Fraser Forster, was sent off for conceding the penalty kick that put Rangers back in front again. And then Scott Brown equalised and celebrated with the open armed gesture which became known thereafter as the 'Broony.'

And there were still twenty-five minutes to go by the time all of that had taken place.

The hairs on the back of your neck stood to attention while marvelling at the full blooded, ear splitting splendour of it all, and the sense of expectation about re-newing our acquaintance with the drama of it all was easily felt.

Warburton and Ronny Deila possibly have no real idea of what it is going to be like when the ancient fixture becomes part of our lives again next season. And we need that game to enliven Scottish football.

It was wonderful to see Ally MacLeod inducted into the Hall of Fame. Vilified and idolised at the same time, Ally gave us a strong sense of national identity when he led Scotland to the World Cup finals in 1978.

And it was deeply satisfying to see Craig Brown honoured as the special guest at an occasion where we remembered how his time in charge of the national side seemed like the Golden Age of Scottish football compared with what's going on now in our hour of need.

'Broon' was dismissed by some as a schoolteacher while guiding the national team to the World Cup and the European Championship. Please, in that case, send us a another schoolteacher with Craig's managerial talent some time in the very near future and then we might start to get somewhere.

Warburton digested Scotland's illustrious past on a night off from plotting Rangers' return to better days. The rest of us can wallow in nostalgia while learning a lesson about modern studies.

We are, in terms of the Scotland team, marooned in the wilderness with no discernible sign of things getting better any time soon. Better to be humble about our current standing in that case and understand that hard work, application and dedication will be necessary to build a brighter future.

Bin the false bravado and strap ourselves in for a bumpy ride.

In the meantime, accept that the re-introduction of Old Firm rivalry will re-ignite a spark at domestic level and embrace the stronger sense of competition that will come with its return.

In other words, ignore the emotionally challenged who will bang on about administration, liquidation and the effects of both at Ibrox. Leave them to wallow in their private world of discontent. We've got a game to restore and new items of memorabillia to be placed in our football museum.

One day Warburton and Deila should be able to go there and see their photographs there for one reason or another.

And then we'll be able to say that nostalgia isn't what it used to be. It'll be back to being a reminder of an illustrious past while we revel in a more interesting present day than we have at the moment.